The earliest Grecian ships were crescent-shaped, and the stern so resembled the horn of a cow that it was called the _korumba_ or point. There is a reference in the Iliad to the high-pointed sterns of ships. From Homer, too, we know that the timber employed in shipbuilding consisted of oak, pine, fir, alder, poplar, and white poplar; that the masts and oars were of fir, that the woodwork of the hull was erected on shipbuilders’ stocks. The word used for the latter was _druochoi_--meaning the props on which the keel (_tropis_) was laid. The hull was secured by treenails and dowel-joints, the planking being laid over the ribs. Further, we know also that the ship of Homer had either twenty or fifty oarsmen. The pre-Homeric Greeks did not use thole-pins, but the oars were fastened to the gunwale by means of leathered hoops. It was not till a later date that the pins already mentioned came into use. It is noticeable, too, that Homer uses the word _kleides_ in referring to the thwarts on which the rowers sat. For the singular of this word means a hook or clasp, and is used in this sense for the thwart or rowing bench which locked the sides of the ship together. _Zuga_ is also used in the Odyssey to signify the same thing. In attempting to piece together these fragmentary details of the Homeric ship, we must bear in mind that below the _zuga_ or rowing thwarts the hold was undecked, but that fore and aft there ran the half-decks--_ikria_, Homer calls them. The forecastle formed at once a cabin and a look-out post, and helped to keep the forward end protected when butting into a sea. Right aft, of course, sat the helmsman, or _kubernetes_, and it is supposed that a bench here stretched across the poop on which, as he sat on deck, he could rest his feet and work the _oieion_ or handle of the rudder. A Greek ship usually had two pedalia or steering oars, one being placed on either quarter. These were joined together across the ship by means of cross-bars (_zeuglai_), to which the tiller or handle was attached. Finally, over the poop rose the tail-piece which is so noticeable in some of the vase-illustrations of Grecian ships, and had its counterpart in the lotus-bud seen in the ships of the Egyptians.